Chapter 7: Cooperation

The previous gifts presented showed more than their countries' sincerity, but also the power that they possess. It was obvious that the Elves and the U.S stood out the most among the participating countries, one had the support of an immortal being while the other had previously unseen magic and technology.

As everyone had started to eat the musical notes of instruments had started to fill the room, people holding said instruments had entered the room. They wore multi-colored clothes and short capes with hoods as they strummed away at their lutes resting on their laps.

Maxim poked at the various dishes, most of them unfamiliar to him. He took bites of the roasted meats which tasted like game meats, probably elk or deer. The taste itself was quite decent but it lacked any type of salt which made it quite bland.

He turned towards his teammates to find them scarfing down their meals anyways, they had only eaten MRE’s for the past two days so any fresh food given to them tasted amazing. MRE’s themselves had a lot of flavor, but eating processed foods for so long could only do so much for the average person.

Maxim wasn’t a heavy eater in the first place, so he picked up his wine glass and went over to talk with the other delegations present. Maxim didn’t exactly agree to come here just because of good will, rather, it was that as well as attempting to form international relations. They had no allies here so far and they had no idea why they were here in the first place.

“Sir Maxim, may I take a moment of your time?”

And it looked like he had found the perfect country.

“I don’t see why not, what do you need me for sir Taurin?”

“Perhaps we should go outside, I need to ask you a few questions”

Why does this sound like an interrogation?

“...sure”

Maxim wasn’t exactly scared of an attack. Unlike most of the actual diplomats, he could absolutely defend himself if necessary. Just in case, he checked his holster for his M18 just to stay safe.

He and the Elven representative moved away from the raging feast towards the garden of the palace. The palace itself was split to surround a vast garden in the center, which provided privacy for anyone who needed some. They went along the hallway in the center of the palace, which led them towards the garden. It was said that the queen herself grew these plants and flowers, though she h

Maxim stepped onto the paved path of the garden, closely following Taurin before they both stopped.

“Sir Maxim, I won’t go around in circles like those other politicians. All of your soldiers are emitting an unnatural amount of celestial power of the immortals, all of my soldiers could see it even though the humans could not. You in particular, I have seen very few people with that kind of aura, we cannot even compare in the slightest. However, we can also detect no magical power from any of you so that power is more or less useless, so who are you people?”

Even before they had pulled him aside, Maxim was going to talk to Taurin anyway. Out of all of the country delegations present, the Elven association was the one that stood out the most. They were also a new addition to the possible allies and they had connections to an immortal, something that Maxim needed to understand why they were here in the first place.

“I’ll be honest with you, none of us have any idea. We just suddenly appeared after some “goddess” said we need to fight for her or else. We’ve got no idea at all”

Taurin’s eyes widened slightly,

“You’re...a summoned army? That actually explains a lot then! All of these things that we have never seen despite living for hundreds of years, it all makes sense!”

Taurin obviously knew what was going on, maybe everybody knew what it meant except the U.S army.

“Wait, so you know why we’re here!?”

“You know of the war, yes? The god’s have turned this world into their personal battlefield to settle their scuffles after they found out most of their powers are drawn from this planet, not the others.”

“So the fuck does this have to do with us!? We were literally just on our planet one moment, next time I woke up I straight up got teleported!”

Maxim was not having it, so far the explanation given did not give a good reason to involve him at all. The “immortals” had somehow taken him away without explanation and plopped them in the middle of WW3. If he could, he would just fire every nuclear missile at them and tell them to go to hell (If that’s even possible).

The sky had already turned pitch black, with only the sounds of crickets and the small splash of the fountain in the center of the garden keeping them company. Maxim checked his watch, which read 9:15 p.m.

“The humans may worship the immortals to an immense degree, but any demi-humans, elves, and dwarves do not. They may respect them, yes, and attempt to help their domain but we do not shed blood for them. If we fight, we do it for ourselves, although we do not know why the main groups of elves have opted for war instead of peace.”

Taurin’s eyebrows furrowed, looking a bit more distraught than he previously did. He could sense Maxim’s increasing agitation, which was understandable. He knew the immortals existed, but he felt that they were just selfish beings that used others to do their dirty work. The goddess of nature was used as a symbol more than a higher up, since she had created elves and granted them magical powers at birth.

“That’s where the summoned armies, also known as the champion armies, come in. Armies from different worlds are taken here to fight for their gods and goddesses, most of the time willingly because of their beliefs. However, it seems that was not the case for you”

Maxim wasn’t religious in the slightest and he knew only a small portion of the people brought here from Fort Bragg were, it made no sense at all.

“Then how the hell do we get back? We can’t stay here forever, we still have families waiting for us!”

Taurin sighed. This was truly a peculiar case that he had never seen before, the thing was that the summoned armies were either killed or just lived here until they died.

“...apologies, but I cannot help you. We are not a summoned army and from what I understand, no summoned army has ever gone back. They all die one way or another, the only way to go back is through the goddess that brought you here.”

Maxim breathed heavily before smiling, albeit quite forcingly.

“We’ll deal with it when we cross that path. However, I did want to ask for a political relationship with the elves. We have all the technology we need, what we do need is to understand magic. From what I can see, you’re the only ones who can use magic without support.”

Foreign relations are of course important, it’s the basis of any country to have a proper standing in the international community after all. From what Maxim had seen the elves had a similar goal to them, to stop the conflict tearing the kingdoms apart.

“Sir Maxim, although I would wish for foreign relations with your country it would be quite difficult. Our council dislikes any outside contact, we were only sent out of respect for the battle prowess of the Lunama kingdom.”

Maxim sighed, scratching his head aggressively. He could only go so far, he wasn’t a politician by any means and just wanted the people in New Fort Bragg to have a better chance at surviving in this world.

Taurin reached into his pocket, which made Maxim automatically rest his hand on the pistol holstered on his hip by instinct.

He pulled out a communications crystal instead, however unlike the one Maxim had his was a green one.

It glowed for a bit before it completely lit up, showing that it successfully connected to another crystal.

“Sir Taurin? I thought you were eating with the humans, is something wrong?”

Taurin looked towards Maxim, smiling a bit.

“No, but can you please inform the grandmaster that I’ll be staying with my company in the human lands for a bit? Surely the old coots wouldn’t mind?”

“ What? But sir, that I don’t think they’ll be too happy if y-”

“Just pass it off as a...err as a political mission. I’m volunteering myself, I’ll definitely bring back gifts and information. Bye”

Before the person on the other end had a chance to respond, Taurin pocketed the crystal which shut it off.

He turned towards Maxim, who was stunned by what he had said.

“Wait, so-”

“I hope you’ll allow us to stay with you for a bit, in turn we will teach you about magic and this land”

It looked like Fort Bragg was going to get a bit livelier from now on.

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Corporal James P.O.V

“Kid, just remember to...breathe”

Both James and Simon were eating quickly, but that wasn’t anything compared to what Ben was doing. This guy was stuffing food into his mouth like a duck, not a pig because pigs tend to chew.

As James and Simon looked at Ben in astonishment mixed with a bit of bewilderment James’s walkie talkie started to emit static.

“Corporal we have a slight situation, please respond”

Now?

James grimaced before pushing down the button on the side of the device.

“This is Corporal James, what’s the problem? Don’t tell me we got bombed”

“Sir, we have taken down multiple creatures that were heading for the residential area of Fort Bragg. Most of them retreated at the sound of our gunshots but we downed around a dozen, please advise”

Monsters? Damn it.

James hadn’t been there when Ben and Maxim went to that village, but from what he heard those things sounded like trouble. They were weak, yes, but there were way too many of them. The other problem was that they indiscriminately killed and plundered, considering what they had to spend to kill the goblins their ammunition stocks would definitely be wasted in taking out these things.

“Take the corpses back to base and double the security until we get back, we’ll be back in around two hours. Hold out and make sure nothing passes before then.”

“Will do sir”

James ended the conversation with the private, taking another bite of simmered vegetables. Sure, it wasn’t the best, but you get what you can.

James and his teammates looked up at the two men returning from the hallway, Maxim plopping down on the chair next to James with a sigh.

“We’re going to be having some guests over at New Fort Bragg, check which of the hotels are operational”

Huh?

“Sir, do you mean the elves? They’re coming back with us?”

“Just a few of them but yeah, I managed to convince that Taurin guy to show us how magic works. Oh look, someone new is coming over”

The feasting men and women quieted as a peculiar woman moved confidently across the tiled floors towards the king.

The woman herself was very beautiful, blazing long red hair coupled with a sharp nose and beautiful facial features, she would probably have men fall head over heels for her if she didn’t emit an overwhelming pressure around her.

She was wearing a white and golden military uniform, with more than half a dozen medals and awards plastering her blazer.

The royal guards who had noticed her arrival slammed their spears onto the ground.

“General Jeanne of the grand army is entering!”

Many of the staff and palace guards bowed whilst most of the guests nodded their heads down in respect.

Well, most of them except the group of soldiers from Fort Bragg.

“Pst- Hey sir Maxim, the fuck do we do in this situation?”

“I don’t know, I guess just treat her like a normal general I guess.”

Ben stopped imitating a ducks feeding habits for a moment to answer Maxim

“So she’s going to start talking in a yelling voice as well? OW!”

James smacked him just as Jeanne made her way past their table. She didn’t even bat an eye at them and headed straight for the king.

“King Morkath, I hope you understand that I am very busy right now with the war effort. I hope you have a good reason for summoning me or I’m pulling your alcohol storages away”

“W-WAIT!”

Jeanne had control of most of the country’s production and storage facilities because of the war, so in this case she technically had more power than the king.

“Jeanne haha- I would never call you here just for fun, I received a gift from one of the countries and wanted you to check it out. I think you’ll like it”

The general stared at the king, who was sweating profusely while refusing to meet her eyes. He was chuckling nervously while pointing at the wall right besides the part of the table Maxim and his group were dining on.

She gave him another death glare before striding towards the table, her heavy metal-lined boots making the ground tremble slightly from each step.

“GAH! Sergeant, the scary looking woman is heading straight for us, hide me!”

Ben abandoned his seat and ducked right behind Maxim, who with his larger frame completely hid Ben from sight.

“Christ, she’s not going to eat you! Right guys”

James looked away, chuckling dryly while Simon just looked down at his food.

“Seriously guys!?”

Said person went straight up to the map and studied it, scanning the entirety of the map. The map was created by a satellite so it got every detail it could and accurately as well.

She was silent for a while, just looking over the map. Maxim swore he could feel the gears in her brain turning, almost like how his former general did the exact same thing.

“I take it back, this is truly incredible”

The king gawked at her, jaw dropping down while many of his servants and guards had a similar expression. James guessed that she didn’t give out compliments very often.

“I believe that it is time to regretfully inform your highness that this feast will be cut short for now. We have a pressing matter that needs to be addressed.”

Jeanne reached towards her hip and unsheathed a delicate rapier, which was as highly decorated as the king's weapons that had been gifted previously.

Maxim almost pulled out his pistol instantly, with the rest of his group almost following suit before he looked around at the other delegation guards.

Some of them had reached for their weapons as well, but were stopped by more experienced guards or palace guards.

“As we all know, the rising monster attacks have become a large problem. Due to the constant territory and “cleansing” wars that have been going on, the problem has been passed on to adventurers rather than soldiers.”

As she said this, she used her rapier to point towards the grand forest on the map and drew a circle around the area.

She made sure to not cut into the paper, circling a large area and stopped at the forest near New Fort Bragg.

“All the way up to here, there have been monster sightings reported. The adventurers are starting to run out of supplies, the kingdoms are starting to run out of things to pay adventurers with. The Continental Adventurer’s Guild has refused to help with this crisis unless we start building a new adventurers guild, which we cannot do since we cannot offer the space within our kingdom anymore.”

James winced at this. If there were less people to fight against these monsters then their army would waste most of their resources on defending themselves.

“Which is where all of you come in. This kingdom is now willing to establish trading relations with any country willing to host an adventurers guild. The only thing we have now is money, we have a diminishing number of resources so we must expand our horizons.”

She stopped talking and did a quick bow before standing next to the king, taking the honor guard position next to Vance.

The king glanced at her before clapping his hands.

“So! Are any delegations here willing to host an adventurers guild? Adventurers accept any job as long as they are paid enough, so there’s really nothing to lose here...anyone?”

None of the delegations were looking him in the eyes, even the minister. The minister looked finally looked at him apologetically.

“King Morkath, I’ve known you for many years and we’ve been good friends. You know if I could help you I would, but every single one of the countries here all have their own internal problems, even the elves! We have no space, all of our resources are given to the citizens and soldiers, we really can’t do anything.”

The others nodded in agreement. Perhaps in times of peace it would have been very profitable, but now actual resources were worth more than money. Inflation was insane, and with no one trading no one was earning anything. You could get a deal or two with merchants since they weren’t affected as much, but it was starting to get worse.

The king looked desperately at his long-term allies but was met with apologetic looks. None of them could help him, every single one of them was in conflict.

“Uh, if you don’t mind we can host an adventurers guild. We are lacking manpower anyways”

Everyone's eyes turned towards Maxim, who had said the offer. James stood up and leaned close to Maxim to whisper

“Sir, I got a call earlier. We are getting attacked by monsters as well, if we were to have people that could fight we would be able to repel them without using our limited ammunition resources.”

“Really? You’re not in any major war right now!?”

“Not exactly…unless you count the skirmishes with monsters we haven’t been in a conflict so far. If we have people that can gather materials and such we can produce many items that we can export and trade with”

There were many factories in Fayetteville that were still operational even with their lowered numbers of workers. Woodshops and Clothes factories still had machines that were fully capable of manufacturing items, preserved foods would also be extremely easy to make when presented with ingredients.

WIth their proximity to the ocean, salt would be extremely easy to make. Wine and beer could also be made, but the main highlight here was the water.

Water was thought to be poisonous when normally drunk, but after several days the soldiers had been drinking out of the taps with no negative effects which meant that the water was treated and drinkable.

Even when boiled, water could still have ill effects to some degree. So far, it didn’t seem like anybody here had figured out boiling water killed most of the bacteria that lived in it.

“Yes, yes! I’ll contact the adventurer’s guild right now and they’ll meet you at your kingdom. Thank the gods, we’re saved!”

Without the adventurers help, there would be an infestation of bandits and monsters alike. If S rank monsters showed up they would have been able to wipe out the entirety of the Lunama kingdom, the U.S.A had saved them in this case.

Maybe we are suited for this political stuff after all

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This was Rushed

RUSHED

This week I only have two days of classes, so I’ll have another chapter out in a jiffy as well as fix this one up.

W.O.V